“It matters, particularly for small businesses, to invest in education,” said Ralph Martire, who heads the Center for Tax and Budget Accountability. “Small businesses hire primarily from the local labor market. They need their local schools to produce quality workers with literacy and numeracy skills.”

Martie says Illinois cannot pay more for education if the state rolls back the 2011 “temporary” tax.

It’s less than surprising that Martire supports a tax increase for more school spending. Illinois’ major labor unions have funded the CTBA, and many union leaders sit on the group’s board of directors.

Martire argues that most businesses in Illinois do not need the corporate tax relief that would come by allowing the 2011 “temporary” tax to expire.

“Most businesses don’t pay the corporate income tax at all,” Martire said at the statehouse Monday. “The vast majority of businesses in Illinois that file an income tax return, almost 70 percent, paid $0 in corporate income taxes … Only 5 percent of all businesses in Illinois have corporate tax liabilities exceeding $10,000.”

Martire said more businesses in Illinois would be helped by property tax cuts, not by corporate income tax relief.

MORE SPENDING, NOT FEWER TAXES: Martire — unsurprisingly — says more spending is the answer to stagnant job creation.

But Kim Clarke Maisch, Illinois state director of the National Federation of Independent Businesses, said, “Taking money away from people who create jobs, however that happens, is not going to create jobs.”